JRT Annual Meeting
Partnerships: Breaking Down Boundaries
Caux, Switzerland, July 25-30, 2000
The Junior Round Table (JRT) held its
seventh annual
forum in Caux, Switzerland as part of the Caux Conference for Business and
Industry (CCBI). The gathering
drew twenty-five participants from ten countries, including Croatia, France,
Korea, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and
United States, to discuss Partnerships:
Breaking Down Barriers. Each
day of the conference began with a plenary session involving all CCBI
conference participants. Following
the daily plenary session, participants took part in one of five forums, of
which the JRT was one. Each day
concluded with either a keynote speaker or a series of workshops open to all
conference participants.
Day 1: Tuesday, July 25, 2000
The evening of the first day started with
an introduction of the JRT, the CCBI program, and mutual introductions of all
JRT participants. The floor was then given to Mr. Michel Tobler, who has
participated in several early JRT meetings. Mr. Tobler related his experiences
with Moral Rearmament and how MRA was able to provide guidance in his work.
Mr. Tobler conducted a Management Buy-Out, when the business unit in which he
worked was to be closed. The company, that Mr. Tobler now heads, has 24
employees, makes 6M$ turn-over, and produces gift wrapping paper among other
things. Mr. Tobler has three personal guidelines:
- Faith,
which is where God and man meet
- Character,
which concerns people
- Principles,
such as truth, trust, and honesty
Day 2: Wednesday, July 26, 2000
The morning session of the second day was
devoted to the topic “What is partnership about?” Each participant was
asked to give his or her opinion on the topic, preferably using examples from
personal experience. Some commonly mentioned characteristics of partnership
were trust, communication, common goals, responsibility, accountability,
empowerment, and compromise. More important than these characteristics was the
ability to share experiences and to learn from each other.
The afternoon was used by the JRT group to
hike into the mountains. This provided a good opportunity to get to know each
other.
Day 3: Thursday,
July 27, 2000
Mr. George Sherman, a journalist from St.
Josephs, Missouri, USA, spoke about the international nature of partnerships.
His perspective has been shaped by years of work in the
labor-management relations field, as well as an ongoing column in the St.
Josephs Telegraph newspaper. Mr.
Sherman’s comments focused primarily on the negative impact of poorly
conceived partnerships. He drew
particularly from the recently enacted North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
and identified the impact that this pact has had on issues such as pollution,
jobs, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and industry in general.
He suggested that the lure of money contributed to abusive
relationships between potential partners.
He indicated that international partnerships, such as that envisioned
by the NAFTA agreement, involve not only governments and multi-national
corporations, but also communities that are impacted by the exportation of
jobs. Mr. Sherman cited
statistics indicating that among industrialized nations, the United States is
last in the gap between rich and poor. He
also criticized “corporate welfare” which amounts to subsidies from
governments to businesses to promote development of certain industries.
He provided additional statistics showing that those receiving some of
the largest subsidies were also laying off significant numbers of workers and
paying their Chief Executive Officers large salaries.
He suggested that the system of checks and balances necessary to ensure
efficiency and effective partnerships were missing when it came to large
multi-national corporations.
Several keys were identified for effective
cross-border and cross-corporation partnerships:
relationship building, long-term perspective, appropriate
infrastructure, clear goals, mutual interest, the role of people, and quality
of the work.
The day concluded with a keynote speech by
Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi, journalist, politician, and grandson of Mr. Mahatma
Gandhi. He spoke on the subject
of money, globalization, and equality, focusing particular attention on the
capacity of human beings to heed the deepest urgings of their hearts to
promote partnerships and overcome the suffering caused by greed and
self-centeredness.
Day 4: Friday,
July 28, 2000
Mr. Peter Koenig is a British consultant
who lives in Zurich and who has pioneered new thinking on how to handle and
prioritize money and profit. During this session, Mr. Koenig focused on trust,
which is an important prerequisite for partnership. Trust is based on
experience and depends on your belief system. More specifically trust depends
on the other person meeting your expectations. Trust can be broken, but can
also be repaired. When trust is broken and subsequently repaired through
clarification and communication, this may deepen the relationship. When broken
trust is not repaired, anger and a broken relationship result. According to
Mr. Koenig, the cycle of life consists of starting with a healthy amount of
mistrust, then trusting, then breaking trust, subsequently repairing trust,
forgiving, thereby deepening the relationship, and so on. This cycle is the
‘stuff’ that partnership is made of.
In the afternoon, Dr. Barry Hart, a
specialist in the field of conflict transformation, presented a workshop to
participants on this subject. The
workshop provided a glimpse into the field of conflict transformation and
helped participants understand some of the skills that might be helpful in
promoting effective partnerships. Dr.
Hart began by identifying the various types of conflict:
relationship conflicts, data/information conflicts, interest conflicts,
structural conflicts, and values conflicts.
Following this discussion, participants were provided with an
assessment tool that identified individual styles of addressing conflict.
From there, participants were given an opportunity to engage in a
conflict situation requiring the application of conflict transformation
skills. Dr. Hart concluded the
workshop by emphasizing the importance of listening to conflict
transformation. He indicated that
individuals could speak on average 150-200 words per minute but could process
approximately 600-800 words per minute. This suggests the importance of active, engaged listening to
ensure that nuances contained in language, including tone and body language,
were understood.
Day 5: Saturday,
July 29, 2000
The day began with an evaluation of the
week’s events and a brief discussion on the future of the Junior Round
Table. It was decided to hold the
next JRT Interim Meeting in Croatia in the spring 2001.
Details of the gathering will follow.
It was suggested that extensive use be made of the new JRT website to
share ideas and foster greater partnership among participants.
In addition, the idea of local JRT chapters was discussed. A Dutch JRT
chapter was started in 1999 as a try-out. The experiences of the Dutch JRT
chapter were positive. It was appreciated to be able to stay in touch with a
group of like-minded people throughout the year and ‘to keep the Caux spirit
alive’. Specific suggestions for new JRT chapters included the UK, Croatia,
and Ukraine.
Mr. Paul Nouwen and Mrs. Monique Walrave
presented the last JRT session. Mr. Nouwen recently retired as the head of the
Dutch Automobile Association. Mrs. Walrave is project manager corporate
culture at Siemens. Mr. Nouwen addressed the concept of ‘Servant
Leadership’, which is described in several books by Robert Greenleaf.
Servant Leadership is a concept where good leadership requires a serving
attitude towards employees, customers, and other stakeholders. In the end,
business comes down to relationships between people and to trust. Mr. Nouwen
urges young people to follow their inner voice and speak up as early as
possible, rather than worrying about career first and caring about social
issues only when retired.
